The Modern Art of College Roommates
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: Miles Edgeworth had started out his first year of college with a tidy room all to himself, but the addition of an art major who can't fold his clothes and has blue raspberry flavored toothpaste quickly makes things much more irritating and perhaps much more exciting. [au] [eventual narumitsu] [multichapter]
1. Meet Your Roommate, Phoenix Wright

Miles Edgeworth hummed to himself as he reached around in his pocket for his dorm room keys. Even though class wasn't technically in session yet, he'd decided that he'd take the walking tour of the campus beforehand just to get a feel for the place. It was a large campus, and he'd had the misfortune to have his dorm on the end that was an across-campus walk just to get to the dining hall. Coming back to the dorm after dinner had been enough to get him heaving from exhaustion.

He finally found the keys and opened the door, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of his dark, quiet dorm room. He was technically supposed to be with some other student, but the other guy hadn't shown up yet and Miles quite preferred it that way. He was about to sit down at his desk when his eyes fell on the boy sitting in his chair.

The boy was sitting in his chair, at his desk where his photos of himself as a toddler with his father and Steel Samurai mug full of pencils both sat, scribbling away at some paper while holding one of his precious and somewhat embarrassing photos up in front of him.

"Excuse me," Miles said cautiously, trying not to let the fact that he was about ready to commit situational murder show through in his tone. The boy didn't look up. Miles cleared his throat. "Excuse me. Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"

The boy then turned around. "Oh! Hey!" Miles then got a good look at the delinquent that had ended up in his room. He was tall and lanky compared to Miles' own stocky, broad-shouldered physique. His spiky dark hair stuck up awkwardly and made Miles think of some sort of forest animal like a porcupine. A pencil was shoved behind his ear and his marker-stained t-shirt was at least a few sizes too large for him.

"Who are you?" Miles repeated.

"Oh, I'm Phoenix Wright! I'm your roommate!" Phoenix Wright grinned. "Who're you?"

"Miles Edgeworth. I'm guessing by your general uncleanliness and far too friendly demeanor that you're an art major."

Phoenix stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then it seemed to hit him that he'd been insulted. "Hey! We're not all that bad! C'mon, look, I drew you! That's the biggest compliment you can get from an art major!" He held up the piece of paper he'd been working on when Miles came in. To Miles' horror, it was an extremely good representation of how he looked in the embarrassing baby photos on his desk. "See! We're best friends already!"

"You went through my photos without my permission; I hardly think that qualifies as best friends already."

Phoenix rolled his eyes. "I should tell admissions that they roomed me with a total sourpuss. What are you majoring in, anyways? Being an asshole?"

"Very funny, Wright."

"Call me Phoenix. Or Nick. Or Feenie. No one likes to just call me 'Phoenix' for whatever reason. It's always 'Wright' this and 'Wright' that. What kinda boring name is Wright?! I was blessed with a cool name like Phoenix but nobody ever uses it! What a waste!"

Miles stared at Phoenix, wondering how on earth someone so annoying could even exist. "I...do not think we are on a first name basis, Wright. And to answer your question, I am a law major. I would like to become a defense attorney...like my father." His face darkened, mentioning his father always made him seem like some sort of papa's boy who'd only gotten in because of his father.

"Aw, sweet! Who's your dad? Anybody I would have heard of?"

"Only one of the most famous defense attorneys in the country," Miles responded, losing all sense of shame. "Gregory Edgeworth. I doubt someone like yourself keeps up with such things, but a quick Google search will bring up everything you need to know about him."

Phoenix snorted. "God, are all law majors like this? You talk like the guys on Downton Abbey mixed with the lead dude from Law & Order."

"I shall take that as a compliment." Miles sat down on the twin bed that made up the bottom bunk of the bed he was going to have to share with this imbecile. "Since I arrive first, I took my choice of which bunk I would like. You will have to take the top one, regardless of whether you want it."  
"Whoa, that's a harsh way to talk about bunk beds. Phoenix propped his drawing up on Miles' desk-or was it both of their desks now?-and started up the ladder and onto the top bunk. "The ceiling's so high! I could jump on this thing and not hit my head!"

"Please refrain from doing that."

"I was just joking, chill out." While Phoenix tried out the bunk bed, Miles scanned the room, trying to find some recognition of the clean and organized room he'd had just earlier today. Phoenix had dropped a bunch of art supplies on the ground near the desk; a paint set and pallet plus two huge boxes of Copic pens and enough unsharpened Ticonderoga pencils to supply an entire fourth grade classroom. His clothes were also thrown unceremoniously on the ground near the closet.

"Do you have an idea how to fold clothes? Your suit is just on the ground, there's a special way to fold those."

"I never wear that stupid thing anyways." Miles could hear the other student shift on the bunk above him and wondered how he was ever going to manage sleeping with Phoenix Wright above his head. "I barely know you, you know. We should get to know each other. Do you have any hobbies?"

"I do not."

"Not even something dumb like mini-golf? I'm good at mini-golf, actually. Do you have a favorite TV show? Favorite music artist? Favorite movie? You can't only like learning about the law, right?" Miles looked up to see Phoenix leaning over the railing and grinning down at him. "C'mon. You've got to have something."  
Miles shifted uncomfortably. "I like...the Steel Samurai."

"I've got a friend who loves that! She promised to come visit me later in the year, she lives up in the mountains and she's a spirit medium in training. How cool is that? I didn't even know people did that anymore, but instead of college she's learning to talk to dead people."

"The two are remarkably similar."

Phoenix laughed. "You're not so bad, Miles, see? You make jokes, too. You're not a total party pooper."

"I never labeled myself as a 'party pooper.' Look, Wright, it's 8:20, and class starts tomorrow, we'd best get to bed early."

"Sure, you can, I'm gonna stay up and draw, though. I'll just keep the little lamp on. Can you sleep with that?"  
"Fine."

After they'd finished all the necessary procedures for going to bed (Miles noticed that Phoenix's toothpaste was bright blue and blue raspberry flavored as opposed to Miles' white, almost painfully mint flavored one.), Miles laid down and Phoenix sat down at the desk, constantly adjusting the height of the seat and occasionally mumbling to himself.

At first, Miles laid on the side not facing Phoenix, but eventually he turned around and stared blankly at the other boy's bony shoulderblades and the way his hair stuck up without any hairspray that Miles could detect.

Miles fell asleep to the sound of Phoenix's pencil maniacally scratching at the paper and didn't even notice that Phoenix had abandoned the drawing of young Miles and had instead taken up a portrait of the law major sleeping.

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**alright so this is based off of an au by ace-lazyass on tumblr. the original post can be found here (+ cute fanart) ace-lazyass . tumblr post/75030662377/sorry-with-all-the-ace-attorney-au-posts-i-just**

**i'm excited to start another multichapter; this will be fun! **


	2. Law Majors Are Scary and Phoenix Snores

Miles was woken up by the blaring of an alarm that he fumbled to turn off by awkwardly waving his hand around and finally slapping the blasted thing sitting on the side of his bed. Phoenix had apparently gotten further settled in while he'd been sleeping; he'd hung up his clothes at least and had somehow acquired another desk. Miles decided he wasn't going to ask.

The boy in question was still sleeping, and Miles noticed with part amusement and part disgust that he was both snoring and drooling slightly on his pillow. He stood on his own mattress and shook him gently. "Wright. It's our first day of class. Get up."

"Whozzat," Phoenix mumbled into his pillow.

"It is our first day of class. You don't want to be late. Wake up." To Miles' horror, Phoenix reached out and wrapped his arms around his neck, resting his head on his shoulder.

"S'tooearly," he groaned. "Go away, Mom."

"I am not your mother. I am Miles Edgeworth, your roommate, and if you don't get up in the next couple minutes I will leave without you and leave you to wander around campus helplessly unable to find breakfast and you will end up late for class."

Phoenix's brown eyes snapped open. "Huh?!" He looked down at the fact that he was hanging off the bed with his arms draped around Miles' neck. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to get up." Miles disentangled himself from Phoenix's awkward embrace and went to pick out clothes for the day. He decided one of his many sweater vests and a bowtie. He thought about wearing his glasses, but decided that they made him look far too middle aged. Once he'd finished getting dressed, he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, smoothing down the folds in his somewhat itchy clothes.

"Miles! I have to pee! What are you doing in the bathroom for so long anyways? I really have to pee!" Miles thought to himself that he much preferred Phoenix when he was half asleep. "Are you doing your hair? Do you put gel in it to get those weird triangle bangs or something?"

Miles gritted his teeth. "Fine, alright, the bathroom's yours." Phoenix was wearing a t-shirt that read 'I climbed Kurain mountain and all I got was this stupid shirt' and sweatpants that looked too big for him. "Don't you want to look a bit more professional?"

"This is as professional as I get, buddy."

Miles sighed. "I'm going to go eat early since the dining hall's all the way across campus. Please try not to get lost or do anything stupid."

"Alright!" was Phoenix's cheerful reply.

'Breakfast' ended up being a bowl of soggy cornflakes scarfed down at a table all by himself as he realized he was going to be late if he took any longer. He found himself wishing that he'd written down the number of his classroom, but nevertheless he grabbed his bag and raced out of the dining hall as fast as he could as soon as he realized that it was 8:30 and class started at 8:45.

Apparently running up the four flights of stairs and arriving at the classroom door sweating and out of breath hadn't been necessary, because the class was remarkably small. A bald man with a huge, grey beard sat at the desk. "Miles Edgeworth," Miles said, trying to look as though he wasn't sweating from both embarrassment and exhaustion.

"Yes. Sit down. It seems we've got everyone here now. Please sit down, Mr. Edgeworth."

Miles scanned the small class in front of him. There were quite a few desks where no one at all was sitting. The one in the front was occupied by two professionally dressed brunette women who were only distinguishable by the fact that one of them seemed to be constantly adjusting her pencil skirt to keep it from riding up her legs and the other had some sort of medals clipped to her shirt.

The other desk in the front contained a Hispanic-looking man whose eyes were covered by mirrored sunglasses and who smelled vaguely of Axe deodorant. His eyes would dart to the brunette woman's small skirt every couple of seconds, which her medal-donning companion cast him a somewhat terrifying glare for. The other option for a seating mate was a petite girl in a blouse and cravat whose hair was dyed a bright platinum blue color.

He decided to go with the blue haired girl. She had eyes that were a similar color to her hair and a large beauty mark on her cheek. Her hands were covered by black gloves and she held in them a pile of notes. Miles wondered how she had so many notes in the first few minutes of class.

"Hello," he tried awkwardly. "I'm Miles Edgeworth."

The girl didn't look up. "Franziska von Karma." Her voice was sharp and accented. "Remember the name."

Edgeworth decided it was best not to respond, and sat back and listened to the teacher's course introduction. He seemed nice enough, apparently he'd originally wanted to become a judge but had settled for teaching law instead.

The two professionally dressed girls introduced themselves as Mia and Lana, the boy with the mirrored sunglasses was 'Godot' although that apparently wasn't his real name. And of course, Franziska, the somewhat terrifying German girl. Overall, it seemed like a nice enough class. As nice as law students could get, probably. Lana didn't smile very much and Godot smiled too much but they all seemed intelligent at least.

The rest of the morning was a blur of taking notes and meeting new people, and by the time lunch rolled around Miles felt less and less like an ace defense attorney and more like a scared, confused college student.

Clutching his books to his chest, Miles silently thanked admissions for placing his classes closer to the dining hall than his dorm. The college was just so…big. There were people everywhere, and Miles was almost completely certain he wasn't ever going to see anyone he knew ever again until he saw a familiar imbecile in drawn-on clothes.

Except this time Phoenix was flanked by an equally stupid looking boy in an orange jumpsuit who'd somehow tried to do his hair up into a failed attempt at a mohawk and an extremely tall, broad-shouldered student in a green trench coat. "Hey, hey, Miles! How're you doing?"

"I am fine."

"You've gotta meet my friends! This is Larry Butz and Dick Gumshoe. They're both theatre majors."

"How're you doing, pal?" the taller one said, shaking Miles' hand a bit too hard. "Dick Gumshoe. Nick here won't shut up about you. Says you're a clean freak who's into the Steel Samurai."

"Uhm."

Miles didn't get to finish, because then the other friend of Phoenix's immediately jumped in. "Yo! Man, you look serious. You're a law major, right? I can tell. Man, I've always wanted to date a girl who majored in law. Do you know Mia Fey? I'd tap that."

"I believe she's taken," Miles said neutrally, recalling the tall woman in the medals called Lana's displeasure at Godot looking at her companion derogatorily.

"Aw, shit. I'm never gonna get a date at this rate!"

Phoenix beamed. "C'mon, Miles, you can eat with us! They're fun, I promise. Gumshoe's kinda forgetful and Larry has girl trouble but they're nice guys." Phoenix grabbed his hand and pulled him into the mass of people heading for the dining hall before Miles had a chance to protest.

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**updates two days in a row? crazy, man. anyways, im SUPER excited that i'm writing this expect a lot of updates. further stuff about this au can be found here: ace-lazyass . tumblr tagged/college!au **


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